The Langston wasn’t merely a hotel. It was a landmark.
Occupying a prime plot of land in downtown Babylon, it was intimately connected to the city’s arteries. Bus stops, subways and highways were all within spitting distance of the property. Right in front of the main entrance, a plethora of landing pads empowered the rich and famous to announce their arrival with pomp and ceremony.
The building itself was an enormous three-dimensional L. Two towering edifices of glass and concrete joined together at right angles, with a central spire serving as the lift lobby. At key floors, sky gardens slashed across the unbroken panorama of blue and white. The rooftop bar boasted a stunning view of the city, replete with a swimming pool in one wing and a garden in the other.
For over a decade, the Langston was consistently rated as one of the top ten five-star hotels in Babylon—and in the nation. Its achievement was all the more remarkable for it never having received any overt funding or endorsement from any of the New Gods. Then again, even warring powers needed neutral ground to discuss temporary truces and sub rosa deals.
International celebrities sojourned at the Langston. Billionaires held parties and pressers here. Socialites and influencers raved over the exquisite selection of fine cuisine available at the restaurants and bars within the hotel. With all the publicity the hotel attracted, it was naturally concerned about its security.
Security guards stood watch at the multiple ground floor exits. Cameras covered every hallway, every elevator, every publicly-accessible space. The access control system came from the most renowned brand in the business, and was updated on a strict schedule. The wireless network was encrypted and hardened.
Crime did not take place here. Crime could not take place here. The in-house security AI was programmed to identify potential illegal behavior by keying in on suspicious body language and tracking movements. The staff all carried RFID tracking tags. Any miscreant would be swiftly discovered and detained. The hotel’s security staff were also all too happy to partner with the personal security details of their clients. Especially if they spoke for the New Gods.
For all its security measures, the Langston still retained the most vulnerable chink in any organization’s armor: the human staff.
Peter had identified a manager at the Langston through social media. She was far more careless with her information security than she had any right to be. Inside an hour, he was inside her devices—and then, inside the hotel network.
He used her credentials to create a new entry in the personnel database. He skipped over to the IT department and gave this non-existent person full access to the network. Steadily, stealthily, Peter took over the hotel’s systems, transforming into the spider at the center of a digital web.
Then he added a second entry.
Kayla Fox reported to the Langston the following day. She showed up bright and cheery, ready for her first—and only—day at work. There she was issued everything she needed as a maid: uniforms, hotel regulations, supplies, and most importantly, an all-access keycard.
Her first assignment: the forty-fifth floor.
As she made beds, dusted down tables, wiped glasses and cleared the trash, she studied the layout of the floor and the rooms, committing the details to memory. Inside every room, she spent a few extra moments spraying down the furniture with smartdust. The tiny dust-sized sensors hijacked the hotel’s wireless network to stream audio and video into Peter’s massive workstation.
At the end of her shift, she carried the keycard back to Peter’s warehouse. As she sketched maps of the area of operations, Zen cloned twelve copies of the keycard—one for everyone on the entry team.
That night, when Yuri and George returned from Lamb’s, Teams Black Watch and Red Raven headed out into the forests past North Valley. There, they test-fired and zeroed their weapons, they familiarized themselves with their new kit, they worked out modifications to tactics and procedures.
They planned.
The following morning, Yuri strolled into the lobby of the Langston Hotel. He had adopted the dress-down chic of the ultra-rich, a comfortable hoodie paired with rugged jeans and white sneakers. His only piece of luggage was a huge backpack. What few words he spoke, he colored with an exotic Eastern accent. He was sorely out of place in the Langston, yet his confident demeanor and unfamiliar speech declared that he was a celebrity incognito in a foreign land. His booking of the Presidential suite confirmed his high status. He requested absolute discretion and privacy, and the staff were only too happy to oblige.
Once inside the suite, he shed his mask, revealing the warrior within.
He set his pack down by the door and retrieved a hard case from an outer pocket. Inside was a countersurveillance kit. He swept every nook and cranny of the palatial room, hunting for radio frequency signals, hidden cameras and other surveillance devices. Then he turned off the complimentary in-house devices and hid them in the bathroom.
A man could never be too paranoid.
Yuri unzipped his pack, exposing his gear. First out was his Arcflash coilgun, broken down into its component parts. In thirty seconds he had reassembled it into a fully-functioning weapon, and slapped in a sixty-round magazine. Next out was his o-tanto, the largest of his war blades.
He took off his hoodie, exposing his undershirt and his war belt. An assortment of pouches hung off his belt: mag pouches, tool pouches, first aid pouch. On his right hip he carried his OZ-72. Call him old-fashioned, but he trusted proven gunpowder technology over new-fangled Gauss guns.
He secured his o-tanto to his left hip, wearing the long knife edge-up in the way of his samurai ancestors, then slung his coilgun around his neck. Then he pulled out the rest of his war gear. Plate carrier, helmet with attached face shield, assault gloves, elbow and knee pads. With two minutes’ notice, he could be kitted up and ready for war.
An hour later, the doorbell rang. Karim and Will, dressed like athletes, also with humongous backpacks. The men claimed their spots in the living room, then unpacked their gear.
Will carried the team’s particle beam weapon. Even broken down, it barely fit inside his pack, along with the rest of his stuff. As he put the weapon back together, Karim hauled out a fuel tank from his own pack.
With Boomer toting the PBW, that left Karim as the designated breacher. Karim headed outside and tested his cloned keycard. The reader allowed him back inside without protest. Just in case it wouldn’t work, he secured a collapsible breaching tool to his plate carrier.
Zen and James were the next to arrive, with assault kits similar to Yuri’s. Zen had brought along his laptop too. Once his weapons and gear were ready, he set up shop by the worktable and dove into a digital ocean.
Kayla was the last to show. She had donned a blond wig, popped in blue contact lenses, applied makeup in strategic places. Today she was no maid, but a professional sportswoman in brand name athletic wear.
There were no suitable sniper hides in the area. She would join the team as an assaulter. Not her preferred role, but every STS operator was an assaulter first.
When the team was ready and assembled, Yuri sent a message to George.
BW ready.
George’s response came a few minutes later.
R2 GTG.
Red Raven was in place.
The hours crawled past. The operators found ways to busy themselves. Zen plugged away at his computer, still trying to crack the VC’s and SN’s twinned digital empires. James and Karim took turns monitoring the bugged rooms on a cheap tablet. Will left the TV on, creating the illusion of innocent activity. In between meals and bodyweight workout sessions, the team revisited and refined the plan, preparing backups to their backups.
For all the activity, Yuri knew they were just killing time. Just waiting. He was used to it. He had spent much of his career waiting for something to happen, in places much less comfortable than this. In the deepness of the night, as his team turned in, he retreated to the dining table and lowered his head in prayer.
_Dear God, we stand on the eve of battle. Grant us the strength to see this mission through. Protect us from all harm, physical and spiritual. Help us discern right from wrong, good from evil, justice from villainy. Aid us in staying true to the straight and narrow, and keep us from falling into the abyss. Thank you for your gifts and blessings, and may be continue to the instrument in your hands. Amen. _
He opened his eyes to see Kayla and Will standing by the table, watching him keenly.
“Praying?” Kayla asked.
Yuri nodded.
“I’m still trying to figure out this whole religion thing,” Will said.
“Never grew up with faith, have you?” Yuri asked.
“Only a couple of us have,” Kayla said.
It was one of the requirements to join the STS. Either worship a Bright Power benevolent towards humanity, or no gods at all. Four in five STS operators tended to be the latter. It was partly why there were so few operators in the STS, even during its glory days.
“When this job is over, I could discuss it with you,” Yuri said.
“I’d like that,” Kayla said.
“Wouldn’t mind, either,” Will said.
That was all the time and energy they could spare for non-mission-critical talk. They were deep in the belly of the beast, deep in the heart of Babylon. There was no room for distraction. Not until it was over. Whenever that would be.
In the evening, the A-Team arrived.
The SWAT operators arrived in two groups of three, each separated by an hour. They were all here on personal time. BPD SWAT worked in 12 hour shifts, four days on and four days off. Today was their last working day for the week. As soon as they’d completed their shift, they scattered throughout the city to pick up their gear from dead drops, courtesy of Daniel Lamb.
At the Langston, they headed straight up to the suites. Yuri greeted Lee and two other SWAT shooters at the door and brought them inside. The cops grabbed their own spots on the floor, and went to work setting up and familiarizing themselves with their unfamiliar kit.
“I feel like some movie stormtrooper in this get-up,” Lee said.
“As long as people don’t recognize you,” Yuri said.
Like the rest of the team, the SWAT cops were outfitted in amorphous metal helmets with face shields and plate carriers, assault gloves and war belts. Clothing and backpacks were up to the user, so long as it was rugged and generic. It was what passed for high fashion among mercenaries and black operators.
Unlike the Black Watch, though, their primary weapons were more conventional. M855 personal defense weapons fitted with squeezebore suppressors. The suppressor didn’t just reduce the report to a muffled crack; it also squeezed the bullet down to a smaller caliber and boosted its velocity, transforming it into an armor-piercing round.
The M855 could also be operated with one hand. Handy when you had to hustle detainees through a killzone.
When the SWAT cops were ready, the team ran through checks and updates. Team Black Watch and their augments were on the fortieth floor. Red Raven and their cops were on the forty-second. Peter was monitoring the operation through the cameras and sensors. Everything and everyone was in place.
The following morning, the New Gods arrived.
At precisely eight o’clock, eight men entered the lobby. Four from the Void Collective, four from the Singularity Network. They made no attempt to conceal who—and what—they were. The Sinners had sent TBCs, their signature third eyes wide open and constantly scanning. The Void Collective deployed two sets of identical twins, their expressions flat and lifeless, looking at everything and nothing at once.
The Elect warily approached each other. They shook hands, they kept their distance, they exchanged bona fides. Together, they headed to the front desk and identified themselves.
The receptionist hopped to attention. She processed their documents, entered them into the system, handed out their keycards. A manager personally escorted the Elect up to the forty-fifth floor.
As the manager waited nervously nearby, the advance party inspected every room. They were extremely thorough, sweeping every nook and cranny for anything out of place. Peter turned off the smartdust, commanding them to become inert, until the Elect had finished their work.
The team moved on to the ballroom. Once again, they swept for bugs. Once again, they found nothing unusual. Or, rather, they hadn’t stopped to consider that Zen and Peter were watching them through the hotel cameras.
The Elect dismissed the manager, then scrutinized the rest of the hotel. The underground car park, the elevators, the facilities, the stairwell, the roof. As they worked, they surreptitiously planted repeaters and miniature cameras at strategic locations throughout the building.
The assaulters stood to. Weapons in hand, fully kitted out, they stationed themselves by the doors, ready to repel intruders.
The advance party passed them over.
The Elect worked all through the day without a break. They didn’t eat, they didn’t sleep, they didn’t even slow down. When they had cleared the rooms and the routes, they paired off, each Sinner partnering with a VC.
One pair guarded the forty-fifth floor. One pair stood watch at the ballroom. The third stationed themselves at the lift lobby of the basement. The last guarded the front entrance.
Soldiers of the Void could at least pretend to be human. TBCs, with their third eyes, could never do so. That is, unmodified TBCs. The ones assigned to this mission had special chasses.
Now that their sweep was complete, they closed their third eyes, concealing them behind flaps of artificial skin. In the low-fidelity feed from the cameras, there was no trace of seams or folds. No doubt a human who didn’t look closely wouldn’t see anything out of place either.
At eight in the evening, their relief arrived. Eight more Elect, four each from either faction. The newcomers took over from the advance party. Now off-duty, they retired to their rooms.
At midnight, the teams finally stood down. A little.
Under these circumstances, the only shot they had at mission success was to set up way in advance, well ahead of the advance party. Between the Sinners’ supertech and the occult powers of the Void, there was no sneaking past them. Once a guard sounded the alarm, or if a life sign monitor cut out, the VC operatives could teleport away in seconds. The Sinners had the armor and the firepower to fight their way out.
The advance party were all dressed like businessmen. But their suits were tailored for low visibility operations. Velcro panels at key areas to mount identification patches. Vents to facilitate free movement. Snap buttons to accelerate quick draws. And that was just what the cameras could see.
They didn’t openly carry weapons. No sense drawing more attention to the hotel than they absolutely had to. They could conceal machine pistols or personal defense weapons in shoulder rigs under their jackets. Whatever they were carrying, though, Yuri was confident that they wouldn’t penetrate the team’s amorphous metal armor.
If the protectors had splurged on top-end gear, their suits were likely ballistic-rated too. But those would only stop pistol-caliber rounds and fragmentation. Despite their implants and their connection to the Void, the VC operatives were still flesh and blood. TBCs, on the other hand, could resist rifle fire.
All that armor wasn’t rated for particle beams or ultra-high velocity flechettes.
Which didn’t mean the mission would be any easier. Merely more manageable.
Over a secure conference call, the assaulters updated and adjusted their plan for the umpteenth time. It wasn’t perfect—no plan would ever be perfect—but now that they had a better grasp of the enemy’s numbers and positions, they could be better prepared against the inevitable contingencies.
At seven in the morning, the soldiers of the New Gods stood to. Four men positioned themselves in the lobby. Four secured the basement. Four swept and secured the ballroom. The rest took up positions in the kitchen and along the route the caterers would take to the ballroom.
The assaulters went to full alert. Full kit, weapons fully charged, fully prepared to blow the hotel down if they had to.
Everyone waited.
Civilians flowed in and out of the area of operations, totally oblivious to the goings-on. The soldiers stayed out of their way, fading into the background. Under the watchful eye of the guards, the hotel staff laid out buffet tables in front of the Princess Ballroom, a modest spread of refreshments and light finger foods. The hotel screens blandly described the event as a ‘corporate function’, betraying no hint of its true purpose. Emails circulated throughout the staff, admonishing everyone to say nothing about the event, at least until upper management gave the go-ahead.
At precisely nine in the morning, the representatives arrived.
A fleet of gravcars swooped down from the skies. One by one, they pulled into the underground parking lot. Out stepped a party of seven. Four bodyguards surrounding three principals in a tight box. The latter wore expensive suits and carried designer suitcases. The former had tactical suits and kept their hands free.
The group swept into the lift lobby with minimal fanfare. The TBC sentinels nodded at the principals. The VC guards simply stepped back to make room.
The party headed up to the forty-fifth floor and headed down to the east wing. The wing dedicated to the Singularity Network. As the bodyguards watched, the principals deposited their luggage in their rooms.
They headed down to the Silver Ballroom together, the bodyguards huddled protectively around their charges. A VC operative whispered into his Sinner counterpart’s ear. The Sinner nodded.
As one, everyone turned to a corner of the room.
Seven black holes opened in mid-air. Viewed from the side, they were slices of nothingness thinner than the breadth of a hair. From head-on they were yawning mouths into infinite darkness. Writhing, frothing shapes bubbled in the blackness, resolving into color and form.
From every hole stepped a man. The four men in the lead were the protectors, dressed in identical tailored suits. The three behind them were the negotiators, carrying briefcases.
In an eyeblink, the holes collapsed behind them.
It was a low-key way of getting around. It was also a show of strength. VC commandos and Elect could appear out of thin air. Nobody but they knew just how far they could teleport, if they were indeed limited by range. They were formidable enemies—but also powerful allies.
The negotiators shook hands. The cyborgs were unnaturally fluid, every movement executed with machine precision. The VC mouthpieces were inhumanly stiff, moving only enough to carry out this most basic of gestures, and no more.
Together, they grazed at the buffet table. Juice and coffee, pastries and berries, the selection was modest but wholesome. Ordinary humans would have savored the meal and taken the opportunity to socialize. The negotiators kept to themselves, mechanically downing the food and drink as efficiently as possible. As he watched them on Zen’s laptop, Yuri had the uncanny sense that he was watching robots imperfectly reproducing human norms, going through the motions of a custom they had observed but would never understand.
The negotiators entered the ballroom. The protectors stayed outside, then took turns to have breakfast. Whenever a man rotated out, a guard stepped up to replace him. Like their principals, they ate and drank but did not talk, refueling their bodies the same way a human might refuel his car.
As they resumed their watch, they reconfigured their security arrangements. Two men per faction guarded the ballroom. Two patrolled the forty-fifth floor, and shooed away the housekeeping staff. One monitored the front lobby, another watched the basement parking. The rest of the guards returned to their rooms.
They were pros, Yuri decided. Trained and experienced. The entire exercise was smooth and hassle-free, every man knowing exactly where he needed to go and what to do when he got there. Of course, being part of a hive mind had to help too.
The negotiators stayed in the ballroom all morning. As lunchtime came around, the protectors swung into action. Two men stared at the cooks as they prepared the meal. A squad of bodyguards took up formation outside the ballroom. A team of Elect searched and scanned the waitstaff. More soldiers observed them as they brought the food up to the venue.
When the civilians retreated, the negotiators emerged. As before, they partook of the meal in total silence. Grains and tubers, meats and vegetables, fruits and desserts, they sampled everything without pleasure or preference. The only hint of individuality they betrayed was their choice of beverage, or an occasional second serving.
It was the strangest negotiation Yuri had ever seen. By now, most people would be eager to make connections and communicate with each other. At the very least, they would be more relaxed and comfortable. As far as he could tell, there had been absolutely no change in demeanor among the negotiators. Even the protectors didn’t communicate with each other more than they absolutely had to.
As before, when the negotiators returned to work, the bodyguards ate in shifts. So did the Black Watch and Red Raven.
The humans retrieved assault rations from their packs. Designed for high-intensity combat operations, each ration crammed a day’s worth of calories into a package small enough to fit in a thigh pocket. The food itself was nothing spectacular. Sandwiches, fruit and nut mixes, energy bars, jerky, foods and snacks that could be eaten on the go. But it was energy, it was edible, and it was enough.
They were so different from the Elect, Yuri thought, and yet they were so similar too. They were all professionals here. They were all warriors. The negotiators were set to spend all day and quite possibly all night in the ballrooms. The operators had confined themselves to their rooms since the insertion. The Elect chowed down joylessly on five-star cuisine, while Yuri ate and drank with total mindfulness, savoring every flavor and texture. The Elect had pledged themselves to their gods, Yuri had his.
In another time, in another life, they might have understood each other. Respected each other, even. But the choices they had made had placed them on opposite sides. Yuri and his team had chosen to retain and fight for their humanity. The Elect had given up their souls for temporal gain. This chasm would always be between them, and it grew wider with every passing day.
Nonetheless, Yuri refused to think of them as anything other than humans.
They were slaves, puppets, pawns, soldiers, mouthpieces. They had all willingly given themselves over to their gods. Still, they had all been born as humans. They were all humans, once. And if there were ever a way to restore their humanity, to help them break free of the grip of the New Gods, Yuri would choose that over the gun.
It was the essential difference between him and them.
When dinner came around, the Elect executed the same mealtime drill, with a twist. After the negotiators had eaten, the negotiators headed upstairs to their rooms. Only when the negotiators were safely tucked away did the bodyguards dine. When the protectors were done with their meals, they changed shifts.
These talks were getting weirder and weirder, Yuri mused. Everybody knew that the real deals were struck outside formal negotiations. The actual discussions took place at bars and restaurants, in parties and clubs, when everybody could let their hair down. Formal talks merely expanded upon the groundwork established by informal conversation.
Here, nobody was socializing. Nobody was connecting. Nobody was acting like… like humans. Why? Were they so far gone that they had forgotten what it was like to be human? Or, in recognition that they were both hive minds, one made by men, the other from an eldritch realm, both had sides decided to drop the mask and treat with each other exactly as they were, dropping the pretense of humanity altogether?
Yuri didn’t know. He’d spent most of his professional life studying the New Gods, and still there was so much he didn’t know about them.
An hour after the talks, Peter switched on the smartdust. The surveillance feed showed portraits of surreal banality. The negotiators had gathered in their leaders’ respective rooms. They swapped notes, studied documents, typed away on laptops.
They did not speak.
Why would they? They were part of hive minds. The Sinners were connected on the Network they had named themselves after. Every member of the Void Collective was a single cell of a larger organism, in constant communication with the whole. They didn’t have to talk to each other, not when they could share their thoughts and senses without saying a word.
And because they didn’t utter a word, there was nothing of intelligence value the hackers could harvest.
When midnight approached, the negotiators bedded down in their rooms. The bodyguards stepped down a notch. Four soldiers guarded the forty-fifth floor, two covered the basement, two guarded the lobby. The rest retired.
The operators stood to.
They checked and double-checked their kit. They cleaned up the rooms, spraying everything down with privacy spray to erase all traces of their DNA. They packed their bags. They stowed their trash. They grabbed their guns. Zen and Peter made one last sweep on the surveillance system, confirming the locations of the guards, the hotel staff, the guests. They noted which rooms on the forty-fifth floor were occupied, and which were empty.
At one o’clock, they struck.
